Episodes

Caleb moved his family to Panama to begin a teaching career. I asked if he would pick me up at the airport after we met on Twitter ... and hope listening like this evaporates borders. Special thanks to the musicians, Dana Boulé.

Jeannette and her golden retriever, Bram, host the best Airbnb that I have ever stayed at—a barn in a village just outside Amsterdam. I asked why the landscape looks so much like the paintings by the Dutch masters ... and hope listening like this evaporates borders. Special thanks to the musicians, Dana Boulé.

Peter oversees the creation of the most wonderful gelato in Rome, at Fata Morgana Gelato. Though Italian by ancestry, he grew up in Canada and moved to the bel paese only later. I asked what it felt like to immigrate ... and hope listening like this evaporates borders. Special thanks to the musicians, Dana Boulé.

Cristina took us into the Real Maestranza, Seville’s cathedral of bullfighting, when no one else was there. I asked what to look for when the season started the following day ... and hope listening like this evaporates borders. Special thanks to the musicians, Dana Boulé.

Sam rode his new bike from Ireland to Prague where we met in front of the Lennon Wall, a living memorial layered over in years of graffiti. Decades ago, Beatles quotes scribbled there launched the Velvet Revolution. I asked what words he added ... and hope listening like this evaporates borders. Special thanks to the musicians, Dana Boulé.

Jo may not have been as prepared as she needed to be when she visited the U.S. I asked her to describe the shipwreck where we met ... and hope listening like this evaporates borders. Special thanks to the musicians, Dana Boulé.

William makes props for the new Star Wars films at Pinewood Studios in London. We met on the Inca Trail in Peru. I asked how places like Machu Picchu and Sayaqmarka shape his work ... and hope listening like this evaporates borders. Special thanks to the musicians, Dana Boulé and Grupo Sonkoy.

Henry tried three times to cross the border into the U.S., a long journey from his home in Honduras. He has been a translator for Mission Lazarus since coming back. I asked why ... and hope listening like this evaporates borders. Special thanks to the musician, Dana Boulé.

Meghan had an epiphany in Mexico. I asked whether it’s possible to bring her insight back into settled life ... and hope listening like this evaporates borders. Special thanks to the musician, Dana Boulé.

Consider donating to Westin's Fund, a charity that covers the costs for grieving parents related to miscarriages and stillbirths:

Wade Goddard established a museum for war photography that you must visit in Dubrovnik, Croatia, War Photo Limited. He came to Yugoslavia in the 90s. I asked what it was like to travel in a country that no longer exists ... and hope listening like this evaporates borders. Special thanks to the musician, Dana Boulé.

Martin Luther King, Jr. moved to Chicago in 1966 to try to end slums. I did not know until a few years ago, so I went to the spot where he lived and asked Trevor Riley, the community organizer in charge of the MLK Fair Housing Exhibit Center at the MLK Legacy Apartments in North Lawndale to tell the story of that campaign ... and hope listening like this evaporates borders. Special thanks to the musician, Dana Boulé.

President Obama visited his ancestral village to learn about where his family came from. I asked a local there to tell me what that day was like ... and hope listening like this evaporates borders. Special thanks to the musician, Dana Boulé.

The Keats-Shelley House in Rome overlooks the Spanish Steps where the great English poet John Keats lived his final days. I asked its director, Dr. Giuseppe Albano, what moved Keats ... and hope listening like this evaporates borders. Special thanks to the musician, Dana Boulé.

Ernest Hemingway lived in Chicago, Italy, Kansas City, Paris, Toronto, Arkansas, Spain, Cuba, Florida, and finally, Idaho. I asked Nancy Sindelar, whose recent book Influencing Hemingway traces how these places and other factors might have shaped his writing, what moved him to travel so much ... and hope listening like this evaporates borders.

You can find Nancy Sindelar's Influencing Hemingway: People and Places that Shaped His Life and Work on Amazon by clicking here.

Gabriel García Márquez began his writing career in Cartagena, Colombia, but it took him all over the world. I asked a guide there, Duran Duran, to tell me what exactly happened during his exile in Mexico City that made Márquez sequester himself to write his great book One Hundred Years of Solitude ... and hope listening like this evaporates borders. Special thanks to Duran Duran for so meticulously researching Márquez's life and literature to make the tour so satisfying. And special thanks to the musician, Dana Boulé.

K. kept feeling that he had lost himself, or was further away in a strange land than anyone had ever been before, a distant country where even the air was unlike the air at home, where you were likely to stifle in the strangeness of it, yet such were its senseless lures that you could only go on, losing your way even more.

James Joyce never lived in Dublin again once he left yet poured all he knew of the city into his masterpiece Ulysses. I asked the Friends of the Joyce Tower Society in Sandycove, where the novel begins, just exactly how this self-imposed exile shaped Joyce's art ... and hope listening like this evaporates borders. Special thanks to James Holahan for his wonderful skill at bringing Joyce and Ulysses to life. And special thanks to the musician, Dana Boulé.

Pablo Neruda's house in Santiago, Chile has been preserved as a museum, called La Chascona. I asked Javier Ormeño Bustos to explain how travel shaped the great poet's life ... and hope listening like this evaporates borders. Special thanks to the musician, Dana Boulé.